I used to work at a clinic that served a lot of students with dyslexia. They used a method that develops symbol imagery so students can learn to visualize letters and words properly. It's a very intense one-on-one program, and it gets results.
I worked there in the summers- one summer I had a teen who had just started and couldn't reliably tell me the sounds all the letters made. He couldn't properly sound out (or recognize from sight) the word "cat". By the end of the summer he'd made quite a bit of progress but was still so low they kept him there for the school year instead of sending him on to high school. (I believe this was all paid by his school district.) By the start of the next summer he was reading Lord of the Flies. Having quite a bit of trouble comprehending it, but still, huge gains in just a year!
I just thought you might want to look into the program and try some of the method with her at home since it can really get to the heart of the struggles a lot of kids have with reading.
I'd say the key activity the program uses is air-writing. Once the students at the clinic got familiar with the basic method of visualizing letters, they could do some sight words. Here's how that works:
1. Show an index card with the word written on it, tell the student what the word says, give them 5-10 seconds to look at it & memorize it visually.
2. Take the card away and have them "air-write"- write the word in the air with their finger, making the letters each about 3-4 inches high and saying each letter as they write it. (If they have a lot of trouble with this at first, have them first trace the letters on the card with their finger, then when the card is taken away, "write" the word with a finger on the table rather than in the air.)
3. The student should be holding the word in their visual memory now, so you can ask them a variety of questions to develop this skill, such as:
"What do you picture for the second letter?"
"Point to the last letter. Now tell me the letters you see backward starting from the last letter."
In addition to sight words, similar exercises are used with syllable cards. (Just cards with one or more syllables on them- anything from one letter to one syllable of a real word to mutli-syllable nonsense words and real mutli-syllable words.) Working with a higher-level student using these, you can get really creative and have them make changes one letter or one syllable at a time by "erasing" some of what they wrote in the air, adding and changing letters and syllables, all while holding it in their visual memory.
